On October 9th, 2019, amidst a threat of destructive high winds and potential wildfires in California, the utility provider Pacific Gas and Electricity made a historic decision to turn off the power grid. In a difficult decision about public safety, PG&E, chose to error on the side of safety and using its monitoring equipment and weather services, choose to turn off its power-gird in various parts of California for over 2 days, and are expected to do so again this weekend as similar high wind conditions are expected. These decisions are forcing businesses to close or accept cash only transactions (with no working ATMs to banks) and many that have stayed open have been forced to throw away any perishable goods. Over 20 years ago the Engineering Grand Challenges identified the need for better, safer infrastructure, so who's right? Businesses and individuals demanding their power not be turned of, or a public service provider making a decision to avoid causing a dangerous forest fire to start. For more information: PBS NewsHour has a more comprehensive story As Hurricane Dorian was traveling up the east coast, so was a team from local news Station WRAL-TV. Just a few days before Dorian was changing course, WRAL had received a custom built "Storm Tracker" with multiple cameras, radar, and satellite communications. While "storm chasers" are hardly a new concept, the team at WRAL feels that this is one of the smallest, most agile radar equipped news vehicles in the US, and was certainly put to the test with Hurricane Dorian. For more information on the truck, check out "‘Storm Tracker’ to take WRAL meteorologists into the eye of the storm" and its video introduction, and for more information about its use during Hurricane Dorian last week look at "Inside a hurricane: WRAL crew chasing Dorian in ‘Storm Tracker’ is back on road Friday"
At the 2018 Superbowl, Intel's light show department provided a fleet of drones to provide a unique lighting system. As they've advanced their system and productions since then, including record setting flights of over 1000 drones during the Olympics, Intel set some new records in the 2019 Superbowl. Flying over 100 drones indoors, Intel had to work with the FAA, the NFL, and the performers to safely and effectively fly indoors, navigating political and technical challenges throughout. To read more, check out Intel's press release Just before the holidays, a former NASA Engineer, Mark Rober, did an amazing job documenting the process he went through creating a glitter bomb for the porch package thefts he had lost packages from. And while his video and the resulting pranks played out, its interesting to look at the psychology of why the thieves were stealing mail - and how technology can change the way we think. If you haven't seen the video by Mark Rober, make sure to check it out, his channel has some amazing engineering and technology projects. As an ambiguous goal, Clean2Antarctica, an ecofriendly organization is working on developing sustainable energy vehicles that aren't just able to be good for the environment, but to explore it too. Using modern manufacturing techniques, including 3d printing, the organization has built a solar powered vehicle that is fit for traveling across Antarctica. Scheduled to arrive in Antartica later this month, it will spend 30 days starting in December crossing over 2400km using solar power to cross the frozen tundra.It will be interesting to see the results, as their use of technology and sustainability could open a new approach to scientific discovery. For more information look at 3ders's summary or explore clean2antarticia
Every get Halloween candy you wouldn't touch? Turns out that's true for a lot of people, and popular enough that as a advertising tool, Reese's candy built a custom vending machine that would trade cheap Halloween candy for some of its own. Exchanging over 10,000 of their Reese's cups in a matter of a few hours, there was unfortunately only one of these machines in New York City used this year. How do you think it works, is all other candy the same? Would you use it? Perhaps this was popular enough that they'll have more of these machines for next Halloween. It's only 363 days away...
Flying cars have been a dream in aviation for nearly a century, with the first attempts going back into the 1940s. Yet in a field that went from the Wright brothers first flight in 1903 it only took 65 years to put a man on the moon, why has it taken so long to have easy to fly personal airplanes? With advancements in batteries, electric motors, and digital control systems, Opener Inc is making a new attempt with an ultralight aircraft called BlackFly. In someways similar to toy quadcopters, can fly upto 25 miles at 62 MPH with minimal training and special licenses needed and is able to land on grass fields, ice, snow or regular pavement. While it may not be the flying car dreamed of, it may be a new approach to obtaining personal flight.
Opener unveils the first ultralight all-electric personal vehicle press release While not actually Alexa enabled, there is a restaurant in San Fransisco CA called "Creator" where you can order a personalized burger that is created by a robotic kitchen. The machine measures precisise amounts of its ingredient and by using such a machine, staff are able to focus on customer service along with some robotic maintenance to keep the kitchen in working order. While the burger are cheap, the staff are well paid, and when every thing is running well, you're paid to send time on the job reading a book. What do you think? Would you work there? Would you eat there? What would Creator do to the existing local burger joints? Bugatti cars are powerful high end sports cars, and their Chiron holds the record for going from 0 to nearly 250 hiles per hour in just over 30 seconds. LEGO bricks, maybe not qutie as fast. However wanting to see what was capable of what could be build with LEGO Technic parts, had their engineers make their own version of a Bugatti Chiron. While not as fast, using everything from LEGO motors to an oversized LEGO wheel (LEGO manufactures the most rubber wheels in the world after all) created a fully functional self driving car, with so much detail even Bugatti employees couldn't tell the difference from a distance. The first video is the quick introduction of the LEGO Bugatti, but they have since released more detailed How it was build video which is very similar to our own engineering and design process. Sometimes amazing gadgets are out of necessity rather than desire. In Scotland, they have two boat canals that are vertically separated by nearly 80 feet. While they used to use locks similar to the Panama canal, they decided to engineer a better, faster system, and built a one of a kind boat lift wheel to solve the problem. This massive project uses over 1200 tons of steel to lift over 500 tons of water and boats, but using some of the same engineering and science concepts we learn about in school. |
Mr. WelkerTechnology Teacher at Southeast Raleigh High School. Archives
October 2019
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